FUMOUZE, ARMAND. - THE SPANISH FLY.

De la Cantharide Officinale.

Paris, Germer Baillière, 1867. 4to. Orig. printed wrappers. Backstrip partly gone. (4),58 pp. and 5 lithographed plates, one depicting 7 species of Cantharis handcoloured. Some brownspots to plates.

This is the authors doctoral thesis "These de Pharmacie Presentée et soutenue a L'École Superieure de Pharmacie", dealing with the toxical, poisonous character of these kinds of beetles with the popular name of "Spanish Fly". - The Marquis de Sade is claimed to have given aniseed-flavored pastilles that were laced with Spanish fly to prostitutes at an orgy in 1772. He was sentenced to death for poisoning and sodomy, but later reprieved on appeal.

Order-nr.: 44861